Old Dominion Monarchs College Football Pregame Quote, 11/08/2021

Coach is there one thing or maybe a couple things you could point to that’s the difference between losing close games and winning games like you have lately?

How you feel afterward. That’s one. Certainly feel a lot better after you win close games. No, I think its just about playing situational football a little bit better all the way around. You never know what play is going to be the difference in the game. It might be a play in the 4th drive of the game, or it might be the last play of the game. You never have an idea on that but just playing overall situational football. I thought 1st downs were going to be a big factor in this last game, and we were more efficient than them on 1st down by 0.3% which is negligible at best. But, we were much better, we were significantly better on 2nd down than them and that led to us being infinitely better on 3rd down. We were above 70% and they were below 38%. I think that just all those little certain things really help out. I would like to see us score more red zone touchdowns because in those close games that can come up and bite you. We’ve got to be able to take advantage of those and obviously we’ve got to eliminate the two turnovers. But our defense creating two turnovers, should have been two touchdowns. Joe Joe should have got one, but they blew the whistle, but he did a nice job of picking it up. Then Deeve making a great play and scoring on there, defensive touchdowns are always going to be a huge factor in a close game.

The first thing you mentioned is you feel better. What does that do for your team?

It’s a little bit easier to sleep and those sorts of things, I think the thing that we all have to be wary of is that we stay hungry. You can be happy, but you shouldn’t be satisfied. We’ve got to make sure we stay hungry, and we understand what got us to where we are. That’s practicing really well and going 1-0 each day and not looking ahead and going maximum effort on each and every play at practice. I think last week we had our absolute best normal downs practice, which we had to have on Monday instead of Tuesday, but I thought we had our best normal downs practice of the year. Then I thought we had a really good 3rd down and red zone practice on Wednesday last week. Those two great practice days along with a great one on Thursday lead to a great week. The guys know I wasn’t‚Ķ I guess to put it mildly, I wasn’t pleased with Friday, our Friday practice. There were still some times in the game where we had some lulls. If we can put together a full week of practice including the Friday one this week I’d be interested to see where we end up.

You had practically equal amounts of rushing and passing yards Saturday. Is that what you’re looking for, or would you like to see one aspect do a little better?

No, I’ve always thought the actual yardage of it is cool to see after the game. You know you can pound your chest and say how balanced you were and all those sorts of things. Being balanced is about being able to run the ball when you want to and being able to pass the ball with precision when you want to. It’s not necessarily about having equal yardage, it’s about being as effective when you want to do it. It’s not like when we go into the game, we have to do this and we have to do that, I think our offensive line and tight ends do an excellent job of run blocking. I think our pass protection has really picked up over the course of the season. I think one aspect of our running backs game, yeah, they both ran for over 100 yards and had nice games, but the biggest thing they did was they pass protected really well. I thought it was Blake’s best day of pass protection by a considerable amount. It allowed us to win the sack battle which I thought was going to be a huge factor in the game: we had five sacks and they only had one. They got very little pressure on us in addition to that, we might have had maybe four or five more sacks. Being balanced is a team wide thing and it’s a little bit of everybody. We’d like to be able to throw with a little bit more precision. We didn’t complete enough passes I thought in that game, or else we really could’ve had a special day.

Coach last week this team beat an FBS team for the first time in a long time, and obviously it’s been an even longer time since this program has won back-to-back games. Do you view this as maybe a potentially turning point in the trajectory of the program or do you not look at it in sort of that grand scheme of things?

I don’t look at that. Any turning points in the program, I know I sound like a broken record, but I think it would probably be on the practice field and watching us practice with a different intensity and watching us practice with a different mindset and in different focus, which I have seen throughout this year. I think those turning points a lot of times happen in the offseason and you don’t necessarily feel it or those sorts of things, they just kind of happen and you look back on it. I happened to be looking for something, so I ended up watching some practice film from a year ago at this time, obviously we weren’t preparing for games, but we are a much better football team then we were back then.

Did you notice that turning point in practice before the season even started or somewhere along the line this season?

It’s probably somewhere along the line as we’ve gotten more consistent. In preseason we would have some really good days of practice and we wouldn’t always follow it up with another good one. Just the overall consistency from week to week I think is something I’ve seen is a change. I wouldn’t necessarily say we’ve had this program altering difference or anything like that, but I have seen a sustained growth throughout the year that is something that you’re looking for as a football coach all the time. Those things, those light bulb moments those eureka moments, those probably aren’t real. More importantly, they’re really hard to sustain. Then you have to have another one to make that next break through, as opposed to just having as much consistent progress as you can get throughout the entire year.

To follow up on the hungry analogy you made, where you’re hoping that they stay hungry, I would also think there’s a possibility after two wins that would make them even more hungry.

Yeah, I would hope so. I would hope so. Obviously, you love having that feeling after a win, so you’d like to see it be hungrier. I thought it was something that we focused on all week, it was one of our messages about staying hungry and those sorts of things, and we had focused on it the whole game. I thought there were times where we could have laid the hammer down more and really put them away a little bit sooner. In the Sunday meeting I showed clips of the Canelo/Plant fight. Canelo’s obviously one of the all-time greats and he does a nice job for 11 rounds of fighting a great fighter in Plant, and then he sees the opening to take him down and he came out and tried to end it. I think we need to make sure we have that same mentality when we get the opportunity to knock somebody out, we’ve got to have that instinct.

How do you think Hayden progressed in this last game?

I thought he did some good things. There’s a couple throws that obviously he would like to have back, and I would like him to have back. But there’s one play in particular, it was 2nd and 10. We called a play that’s a little bit more of a downfield shot play. They clouded the field. If he would have tried to force it, it would have been an interception. As soon as they clouded the field, he came down to what is essentially his third progression, which is exactly what he’s supposed to do, he threw the ball right to him. Zack catches it for an eight-yard gain. Next play Elijah scores a touchdown because we’re in 3rd and short, and he goes 61. I thought that play was a great microcosm of how to play winning football at the quarterback position.

When you’re having more energetic practice, does that translate into a fast start like you had Saturday? Because you’ve struggled with that obviously this year.

Yeah. I mean, we need to put together a whole game. The fast start thing, we’ve had a couple of those where we didn’t start really fast and then there’s other games where we didn’t finish. We need to put together a whole game. I think that’s something that’s going to be key for us, and something that our entire team is waiting to do. We played well on all three phases; we did not play our best on all three phases in this past game. I actually think that’s one of the coolest parts about this last game is that there’s still a lot of room for improvement, you know. We had some opportunities in special teams to make game changing plays and we’ve made some of those throughout the year. We’re tied with Coastal Carolina for most blocked kicks in the country this year. We didn’t make those on special teams. We played well but we didn’t make any game changing plays. I think that opportunity was still there for us as well. I think on offense we’ve got to continue to be a little bit more consistent in the passing game and that consistency would lead to us being more explosive.

Speaking of Zack, he seems to be getting better as the season progresses. He’s the leading receiver by a bunch, he’s breaking I think more tackles than he used to. Can you talk about his progression a little?

Yeah, he certainly ran more physical with the ball when he’s had it. One time, you know‚Ķ he should’ve went out of bounds in the two-minute drill. But it’s alright, at least he was trying to run him over, which he was. He’s really played well. I think what he’s done is his blocking has led to his ability to get matchup problems on the field. We have two really good pass receiving tight ends right now, Donta’s done a nice job as well. They also block really well. Teams have got to make a decision, are we going to stay in nickel and let these guys bully us around or are we going to go in base and then maybe they have a matchup problem with their linebacker on our tight end. It’s creating some matchups for us that have helped us, and he’s taken advantage and run some good routes, and then we’ve been able to put him in some positions to be successful. It takes a lot of different things, pass protection has been excellent, and that’s helped him as well. I will say that I do think that one of the things in our game that is crazy is we do all these national awards, and we do the semifinalists in week four of the season. How stupid is that? It’s basically how well you did the last year to be if you can get on the list to begin with and then after week four, they just cut it down to whoever they were going to do. I don’t know how the guy whose third in the nation in catches as a tight end is not on the Mackey semifinalist list. I’m sure I would like those people if I met them, but since I feel like Mike Gesicki should have won it in 2017, instead they gave it to a guy that basically plays slot receiver and never blocked, and yes, I hope he’s watching this. I know Mike was not a devastating blocker but at least he did do it. Our tight ends are blocking and they’re catching the ball. I think it’d be a great reward for our entire room if Zack was able to make that list.

Your defense is shaping up to be one of the best in program history. Does that surprise you? I mean you’re an offensive guy.

No. No, it doesn’t surprise me at all. Coach Seiler and the defensive staff, they do a great job and we’ve got some great players who really care, and they do their job. We had a quote up yesterday talking about ‚Äúthe best teamwork is a bunch of individuals all doing their job collectively.‚Äù That’s what our defense has done, we play great team defense. Coach Seiler and the staff do an unbelievable job of creating some unusual looks that are extremely sound. I think we’ve done a great job of executing those things. No that doesn’t surprise me at all. I have a lot of confidence in the guys that I was able to hire on that side of the ball, with the returning players we had on defense and also the guys we brought in. I think they’ve also bought in, the one thing we’ve done really well is we’ve ran to the football, and we’ve tackled. You do those sorts of things; you’re going to do pretty well.

Can you talk a little more about FAU. They played a tough schedule they’ve got some good wins; they’ve got a good quarterback.

Yeah. On offense you know obviously they’ve got the transfer quarterback who’s a good player. Athletic kid, can throw the ball down the field, does some good things. I’ve been impressed with‚Ķ they’ve got some athletic guys on the outside, tight end and wide receiver and things like that, but I’ve really been impressed with their left guard and center. I think those guys are really good football players. As I watch them, athletic. They’ve played a lot of football for them and have done a nice job. Then their running back room is excellent, you know. Number 5 is a little guy but he’s extremely hard to tackle and very fast. They played three different running backs in the last game, and they were all very successful. They’ve done a nice job there. Defensively, they’ve got one of the larger human beings that we will play against this year at nose tackle. I don’t know how big he is, whatever he’s listed at I think he’s bigger. Maybe it’s the single digit. I don’t know how they got a single digit number (#8) that big. He’s a large human. That defensive line in general, they are big. They play well at linebacker, and they’ve got a great safety who is a very smart player but way more athletic than people give him credit for, number 35. Then they’ve got a corner, number 24, that has made some great plays on the ball and has been a consistently good player for them. Another good punter, playing another good punter so that’s going to be a good challenge for us. I thought we responded to that in the last week, so yeah. It’s going to be a good opportunity for us. Their head coach is very experienced, he’s been a lot of different places, and been successful everywhere he’s been. It will be a good challenge for all of us.

Ricky, at what point does eligibility come into the conversation? Whether it’s to say this is what’s at stake or don’t worry about it?

When’s our last game? It’ll be 11/28, we’ll talk about eligibility. November 28 we’ll talk about it. Right when everybody’s eating their last remnants of Thanksgiving leftovers, we’ll be able to discuss those possibilities. Up until then, it’s too big. It’s too much. I think it’s too big to ask somebody to play, I know I’ve said it, but to ask somebody to play four quarters I think is too much. You’ve got to talk about one play at a time. You start talking about games and stringing things together like that weeks at a time, I mean that’s too difficult. It’s too difficult for most adults so for our young men, that’s really hard you know. We’re talking about stringing together one good day and then have another good day after that. I’m talking to guys about making sure they have a good study hall, then after that they can have a good you know, hey let’s make sure we eat right at dinner and those sorts of things. Breaking it up makes it much more manageable.

What did you think of the Old Dominion women’s soccer team winning the Conference USA tournament for the first time ever?

Yeah, it’s awesome. I think it shows our entire athletic department the possibilities of what can be done here at Old Dominion. You can win championships, that thing wasn’t done overnight. Coach Hind built that thing over some time. They played some clutch soccer. They got some‚Ķ listen, even the game winning goal, right? It was a great cross, the header got through and that’s all that mattered right. Then they played unbelievable defense and had a great goalie. That’s what it’s about. Scoring an overtime goal in the quarterfinals to do it and then come back and win 2-1 in the semifinals. They played a lot of really consistent, tough soccer which is awesome. I think that’s something we all can learn from, it’s about playing well in the biggest moments. Again, you don’t know when that biggest moment is going to come but when you get your opportunity you’ve got to take advantage of it.